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May 13, 2014

The Possibilities Are Endless

When Scottish singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins suffered a cerebral
hemorrhage in 2005, his movement became restricted, his memory was lost
and his speech became limited to four phrases that he repeated over and
over again: “yes,” “no,” “Grace Maxwell” (the name of his wife) and “the
possibilities are endless.” There was little chance of him getting his
health back on track, let alone restarting his career, but that last
phrase in his small vocabulary proved to be prophetic. With the help of
his ever-caring wife and son, Edwyn gradually began to piece his
memories back together, took on painting and slowly began to form new
sentences again, recalling and even singing his old lyrics.

Edwyn’s story is a tear-jerker and, packaged in a documentary film titled, aptly but unimaginatively, The Possibilities Are Endless,
it raises red flags for audiences averse to emotionally charged
collections of heartfelt talking head interviews so prevalent in
documentary cinema. Fortunately, there is no sign of that in Edward
Lovelace and James Hall’s film, an astonishing work that subverts all
expectations of formal construction, while painting an empathetic and
incisive portrayal of the singer’s life.

In tracing Edwyn’s process of regaining his memories, the film adopts
his point of view, manufacturing a sensory experience akin to his
perspective of interacting with the Scottish landscapes of his home.
Sleekly photographed and expertly cut, Possibilities combines
archival footage on grainy film recordings from Edwyn’s life with
digitally shot, haunting images of the misty highlands and recreations
of his youth starring his son. The framing breaks Edwyn’s current state
into fragments, focusing on the empty spaces as he stares off into space
and picks up details that others dismiss. Then it reverts to expansive
long shots of his hometown and the eerie presence of the calm seaside.
The film is strictly defined spatially, but paradoxically, the empty
spaces and the frightening sameness of nature embody Edwyn’s struggle to
place his past.

It’s a hypnotic experience, and an utterly heartbreaking one. It’s
difficult to hold back tears as we watch Edwyn fail to recount simple
anecdotes, mistake numbers and memories for one another and remain
helplessly passive in a studio he had once built. Possibilities
does a brilliant job of immersing the audience in his struggle, making
his gradual liberation all the more meaningful, but it does so by
avoiding sentimentality. The audience is invited to live Edwyn’s
experience and ruminate on his surroundings. The resulting experience is
almost spiritual, one that leaves the audience thinking differently
about life itself. The struggle we witness is all Edwyn’s, the catharsis
is ours.